Perspective: Reflecting on the Psalms (Part 3)

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Reflecting on the Psalms
(Part 3)

Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.

Psalm 147:5 (NRSV)

Indescribable, uncontainable
You placed the stars in the sky
And You know them by name
You are amazing, God

All powerful, untameable
Awestruck, we fall to our knees
As we humbly proclaim
You are amazing, God

From "Indescribable" by Laura Story

A little over nine years ago, I took a short class on public prayer.  It was one of the classes I was required to take in order to be certified as a Lay Speaker in my denomination.  At one point, the instructor gave the participants the assignment to write a "prayer of pure praise."  The assignment proved to be a bit of a challenge, as it exposed the tendency people have to make prayer all about themselves and their needs.  As I sat with my pencil and paper, my mind turned to gratitude, and I realized that I could praise God for creating the things for which I was grateful.

Some of the psalms I've encountered this year have been prayers or songs of "pure praise," like the one hundred forty-seventh psalm.  For psalms like this, I find it interesting to consider the things about God the psalmist finds praiseworthy.


Psalm 147

The one hundred forty-seventh psalm begins,

Praise the Lord!
How good it is to sing praises to our God;
for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.¹

Right off the bat, the unnamed psalmist tells us that he is composing a song of praise because God is gracious.  In the mythologies of many ancient cultures, the gods are depicted as capricious or even cruel.  Even in modern times, the phrase act of God is used to describe something destructive.  The psalmist believes in a God who is not like other gods, a God whose grace and mercy are praiseworthy.

The psalmist praises God for God's care for his people.  He proclaims,

The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted,
and binds up their wounds.²

The psalmist is writing his song of praise after a time in his people's history known as the Exile.³  At one point, the Kingdom of Israel was divided by a civil war.  Both kingdoms eventually fell to larger empires, and the people of both kingdoms were taken into exile.  Eventually these empires fell, and the people were allowed to return to their homeland to rebuild their temple, their homes, and their lives.  The psalmist praises God for sustaining the people of Israel through the Exile and for finally bringing them home.

Next the psalmist praises God's power at work in the creation of the universe.  He proclaims,

He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.⁴

The psalmist lives at a time before light pollution, so when he looks at the sky at night, he can see an uncountable number of stars.  The psalmist also lives at a time before space telescopes, so I highly doubt he has any idea how many stars there really are.  At this time, it is estimated that there are two hundred billion trillions of stars in the universe.⁵  The psalmist is telling us that God created all of these stars, named all of them, and is mindful of all them.

If God is mindful of each of the stars, we can trust that God is mindful of each human being as well.

The psalmist then praises God's justice.  He proclaims,

The Lord lifts up the downtrodden;
he casts the wicked to the ground.⁶

The psalmist believes in a God who will set right everything that is wrong in this world.  God hears the cries of the oppressed, and God will bring their oppressors to justice.

The psalmist praises God's ongoing care for creation.  He proclaims,

He covers the heavens with clouds,
prepares rain for the earth,
makes grass grow on the hills.
He gives to the animals their food,
and to the young ravens when they cry.⁷

God has provided for the lifeforms in this world by creating and setting into motion a world that sustains itself.  The rain waters the plant life, and the plant life feeds the animals.  When the animals die, their bodies decompose and provide nutrients for the plant life.

The psalmist goes on to once again praise God's care for his people.  He proclaims,

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your children within you.
He grants peace within your borders;
he fills you with the finest of wheat.⁸

God's love for the psalmist's people is praiseworthy, as is God's love for all people.

Finally, the psalmist praises God for creating the weather.  He proclaims,

He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
He gives snow like wool;
he scatters frost like ashes.
He hurls down hail like crumbs -
who can stand before his cold?
He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.⁹

I think that, when the psalmist praises God for creating the weather, he praises God's creativity and attention to detail.  God did not create a world that is uniform or static.  Different regions of the earth have different climates.  Furthermore, the weather around the world changes throughout the year.


The Psalms turn our attention to God, and the psalms of praise remind us of why God is praiseworthy.  The one hundred forty-seventh psalm in particular calls our attention to the things God created that we might commonly take for granted, like the weather, the stars, and the ecological systems at work in our world.  I hope my recent reflections on various psalms have inspired you to spend some time with the Psalms for yourself.


Notes:

1. Psalm 147:1 (NRSV)
2. Psalm 147:2-3 (NRSV)
3. Michael D. Coogan, et al.  The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Third Edition.  2001, Oxford University Press, Inc.  Hebrew Bible p. 901
4. Psalm 147:4-5 (NRSV)
5. Brian Jackson.  "How many stars are there in space?"  Astronomy.com, 09/28/2021.
6. Psalm 147:6 (NRSV)
7. Psalm 147:8-9 (NRSV)
8. Psalm 147:12-14 (NRSV)
9. Psalm 147:15-18 (NRSV)

The image of the NGC 4414 galaxy was created by the Hubble Space Telescope.